’Tis morn--and nature’s richest dyes Are floating o’er Italian skies; Tints of transparent lustre shine Along the snow-clad Apennine; The clouds have left Soracte’s height, And yellow Tiber winds in light, Where tombs and fallen fanes have strew’d The wide Campagna’s solitude. ’Tis sad amidst that scene to trace Those relics of a vanish’d race; Yet, o’er the ravaged path of time-- Such glory sheds that brilliant clime, Where nature still, though empires fall, Holds her triumphant festival-- E’en desolation wears a smile, Where skies and sunbeams laugh the while; And heaven’s own light, earth’s richest bloom, Array the ruin and the tomb. But she, who from yon convent tower Breathes the pure freshness of the hour; She, whose rich flow of raven hair Streams wildly on the morning air, Heeds not how fair the scene below, Robed in Italia’s brightest glow. Though throned midst Latium’s classic plains Th’ Eternal City’s towers and fanes, And they, the Pleiades of earth, The seven proud hills of Empire’s birth, Lie spread beneath; not now her glance Roves o’er that vast sublime expanse; Inspired, and bright with hope,’tis thrown On Adrian’s massy tomb alone; There, from the storm, when Freedom fled, His faithful few Crescentius led; While she, his anxious bride, who now Bends o’er the scene her youthful brow, Sought refuge in the hallow’d fane, Which then could shelter, not in vain. But now the lofty strife is o’er, And Liberty shall weep no more. At length imperial Otho’s voice Bids her devoted sons rejoice; And he, who battled to restore The glories and the rights of yore, Whose accents, like the clarion’s sound, Could burst the dead repose around, Again his native Rome shall see The sceptred city of the free! And young Stephania waits the hour When leaves her lord his fortress-tower-- Her ardent heart with joy elate, That seems beyond the reach of fate; Her mien, like creature from above, All vivified with hope and love. Fair is her form, and in her eye Lives all the soul of Italy; A meaning lofty and inspired, As by her native day-star fired; Such wild and high expression, fraught With glances of impassion’d thought, As fancy sheds, in visions bright, O’er priestess of the God of Light; And the dark locks that lend her face A youthful and luxuriant grace, Wave o’er her cheek, whose kindling dyes Seem from the fire within to rise, But deepen’d by the burning heaven To her own land of sunbeams given. Italian art that fervid glow Would o’er ideal beauty throw, And with such ardent life express Her high-wrought dreams of loveliness,-- Dreams which, surviving Empire’s fall, The shade of glory still recall.